Banksia Hill: Inmates as young as ten living in 'unstable prison environment'

Children as young as 10 are living in an unstable, high-risk prison environment, according to a recent prison inspection report.

Strip searches and isolation cells are some of the procedures criticised in a damning report from The Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services – the government department which reviewed conditions at the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre in Western Australia.

The state government-run centre, which currently holds over 170 inmates between the ages of 10-18, has faced years of scrutiny following a string of incidents including riots.

"I am required to report on Banksia Hill every three years, but the centre’s problems have been such that this is now my sixth report in six years," the Inspector of Custodial Services WA and the report’s author, Professor Neil Morgan, wrote.

While the report has found that the number of routine strip-searches had decreased significantly since 2015, nearly 13,000 strip searches were performed over a two-year period, despite very few contraband items being found.

"In 2015, there were 9,067 strip searches. In 2016, this dropped to 3,746. The number of contraband items found remained very low – seven in 2015 and three in 2016," wrote Professor Morgan.

These figures have outraged Amnesty International, with the organisation’s Indigenous Rights Manager, Tammy Solonec, labelling the practice as highly unjust.

"When you consider that small amount of kids who are in there, and 13,000 strip searches … it’s an enormous problem. It’s a gross violation of the rights of vulnerable children" she said.

Inspector of Custodial Services WA Professor Neil Morgan.

Professor Morgan wrote that, "In most situations, strip-searches at Banksia Hill were carried out according to the 'half-and-half' procedure."

This involves the inmate removing the top half of their clothing and replacing it before removing the bottom half, ensuring that they are never fully naked.

However, the staff at Banksia Hill have carried out full body searches.

"A full strip-search is to be conducted when a young person is first admitted into the facility. This is considered practical because the young person is required to shower and change into clothing provided by the centre," Professor Morgan wrote.

"We do not consider practicality to be sufficient justification for subjecting young people to a full strip-search."

The Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, which was tabled in Parliament in November 2017, also saw no reason for a full strip-search.

Professor Morgan’s recommendations included that the Intensive Support Unit (previously known as the Harding Unit) at Banksia Hill be repurposed into a facility that offers better quality care.

The report found that the Intensive Support Unit "is counter-therapeutic and totally at odds with the trauma-informed model of care that the centre has developed. This has been known and accepted for years, but nothing has been done, even during the 2010–2012 expansion project".

The ISU contains several isolation cells, where it is claimed by Amnesty International that some children have been isolated for long periods of time.

The mother of one of the boy incarcerated, Jason, posted to Facebook this morning saying her son had been held in an isolation unit at Banksia Hill for 350 days.

"We’ve been calling for some time now for the ISU to be closed down until it provides this therapeutic care," Ms Solonec said.

In his report, Professor Morgan also highlighted education as a major problem area.

"Education has been one of the biggest casualties of Banksia Hill’s instability and lack of direction. Every child in Australia has a right to education, and young people in custody should not be receiving a lower standard of education than those in the community," he wrote.

"The inspector recommended half-and-half strip searches which the department has now implemented and is also investigating new technologies and innovations to eliminate the need for strip searches," he told nine.com.au

"It is a highly scrutinised facility with not only the independent inspector able to visit the facility unannounced at any time, but independent visitors and Indigenous elders also visit the facility.

"Claims that have been made by external parties are being assessed, at my direction, by the Inspector of Custodial Services.

"We cannot talk to individual circumstances, but I am assured that no detainee is held in so-called isolation.

"Rather the Intensive Support Unit is an accommodation block that includes standard accommodation and separate 24-hour monitoring cells for detainees who are at serious risk of self-harm or of hurting others.

"They are used on a short-term basis."

The report has recommended that the centre re-establish the principal position and recruit a principal to lead education services at Banksia Hill.

Professor Morgan’s found that responses to poor behaviour had too often been applied to the whole population rather than to those requiring behavioural support, such as when seven detainees started a riot in May 2017.

"The regime changes that followed the May incidents had profound impacts on education delivery," he wrote.

"For several weeks, the education centre was closed. By the time of the inspection in July, full-time education had still not been restored."

Mr Logan said: "The Department is acting on the education recommendations and the principal position has been re-established. There is currently an acting principal in place while the position is being advertised."

Ms Solonec called for early intervention prevention and diversion strategies within indigenous communities to be used to help curb the incarceration rates of young offenders in WA as had been implemented in other states.

Mr Logan told nine.com.au, Banksia Hill was "turning the corner and significant progress has been made".

"It was plunged into chaos by the previous Liberal-National government which closed the Rangeview Juvenile Remand Facility in 2012 and put sentenced and remand detainees into the one facility, Banksia Hill," he said.

"That terrible decision, and lack of leadership by the previous Barnett government, led to major riots and significant incidents in the years following."

"The centre is now stable since the McGowan Labor Government took office and there is a structure in place that has given the staff and detainees the boundaries, routine and support they need to continue turning the facility around."